Re: The Media Today

Over a year ago

by Alex Spalding

If no one is looking over the shoulders of most journalists in the media or telling them what to say (or what not to say), why is it that so many important stories really do appear to be covered up or spun in today's media.

It seems that if media were completely uncompromised, stories related to the (still running) Monsonto corporation or America's support of terror and of fascist third-world regimes, for example, would see more air time. I find it so often repugnant that media will de-humanize the news to the extent that a tragedy can read like a statistical survey.

It also seems ridiculous that when media presents people to debate or speak about any important subject, they are given only around 30 seconds to a minute to condense very critical and complex views as well as, in debate formats, raise their voice to compete with whoever else is trying to get a word in. Public access interviews and debates I've witnessed seem a lot more human and relaxed, allowing everyone to get as many words in as they like. As a result, they also appear more vital to an informed public, in contrast with major news media.

Most importantly, because major news reads and sounds to me typically like an officially handed-down statement from either the corporate system, wall street, the state or other powerful institutions and figures of authority, I find it very unbelievable that in most cases major news outlets do and say what they really want instead of just parroting whatever is handed down by the establishment. It is all the more unbelievable given that practically all major media outlets are owned by the biggest corporations - that alone compromises the journalistic integrity of every major media outlet.

I somewhat agree with Noam Chomsky, who surmised that most members of the major media establishment are not lying when they say they are not told what to do by anyone else, but that the problem is that to make it into a position of wide-reach in a journalism career, one has to internalize the values of the establishment. One cannot simply print any news they deem worthy if that news happens to be something that runs against the interests of the powerful institutions that own the media establishment. I doubt we'll ever see a story on the nightly news exposing the fact that half of the world's money is owned by 1% of the human population as well as offering professionals a chance to expound upon alternative social and economic systems we could use in America to supplant capitalism and curb corporate power, something perhaps closer to what the founding fathers of this nation invisioned.